Afghan Fear: Does World Still Care?

By JOHN F. BURNS, Special to The New York Times

Published: May 13, 1990

KABUL, Afghanistan, May 7—
When a two-man team from Coca-Cola's Asian operation arrived at the company's abandoned plant near the Soviet Embassy here the other day, a crowd assembled. It continued to gather for days, even after word passed that it would be weeks, maybe months, before the plant could be re-commissioned.

What the eager faces outside the bottling plant seemed to signify was something deeper than thirst. In the 12th summer of their war, Afghans watch for any sign, however oblique, that their plight has not been forgotten.

For a decade, while Soviet troops were here to fight the Muslim guerrillas, there were few fears that Afghanistan would slide down the world's priority list. But since the Soviet withdrawal on Feb. 15, 1989, and the Kabul forces' subsequent success in holding off the rebels, Afghans have had a growing sense that concern for their war has receded in the distant capitals that are seen as having the power to end it.

The conflict itself has settled into a pattern of purposelessness. In the last month, a long-distance rebel rocket supplied by the United States and Saudi Arabia slammed into a bus in Kabul, killing more than 20 people. Another landed at dusk near a mosque, killing at least 15.

Nightly Missile Firings

The sky over Kabul is lighted each night with the exhaust plumes of the Government's Scud missiles, whose one-ton explosive warheads rarely strike distant guerrilla targets. Reports in Kabul's bazaars speak of the weapons hitting villages, markets, even schools.

Each day, in soldiers' sandbagged redoubts and in lowly mud-walled homes, the hopeful rise before dawn to catch short-wave broadcasts in Persian and Pashto, the country's main languages, transmitted by the Voice of America and the British Broadcasting Corporation. Clusters of people listen intently to the scratchy broadcasts, eager for nuances suggesting that the diplomatic stalemate between Washington, the principal backer of the rebels, and Moscow, underwriting the Kabul Government, might be broken.

Last week, after Bush Administration officials announced that the superpowers had narrowed some of their differences over a possible peace formula, there was a new roller-coaster of hope and disillusion. Hope came from the disclosure that the two powers have been discussing elections as a way to end the fighting. Disillusion followed when President Najibullah, the Kabul leader, demanded that he retain power during the voting, a condition rejected by the United States and by the guerrilla leaders.

A year ago, many Afghans believed that arms, not diplomacy, would end the war. But after 15 months of impasse in the fighting, most people seem to believe that all hope for peace rests with negotiations.

An Old Man's Plea

''Please, good sir, when you come next time, bring us some good news, some sign that our troubles will soon be at an end,'' an elderly porter implored an American visitor preparing to leave Kabul airport. His eyes moist, the old man stepped back in his threadbare khaki uniform and offered a shaky salute.

At the height of the siege of Jalalabad last year, reporters took their lives in their hands to reach the strategic city from Kabul. Now, the same Soviet-built military helicopter, with the same pilot, Capt. Mohammed Humayun, flies low above the road that threads between the two cities, with the 25-year-old captain grinning at the scene in the rocky gorges below.

Where rebel groups once succeeded in closing the road for weeks at a time, convoys now ply steadily eastward, carrying weapons and food to the garrison. Likewise, the 250-mile Salang highway that links Kabul to the Soviet border has remained open because rival guerrilla groups have failed to mount the concerted actions that would close it.

Any hope of tightening the siege of Kabul evaporated when Ahmad Shah Massoud, the guerrillas' most charismatic field commander, decided to consolidate his hold on the northeastern third of the country, a stronghold of his Tadzhik people. Mr. Massoud has been building the semblance of civil government, even posting traffic policemen at intersections in some dusty towns.

What Future May Look Like

Slowly, a pattern is emerging that suggests something of what the country may look like when the war finally ends. With many of the rebel commanders apparently convinced that the key to ending the war lies with the superpowers, many have stopped fighting, and wide areas of the country are reverting to warlord rule. The situation has allowed the United Nations to mount ambitious missions that cross Government and rebel lines. Trucks loaded with supplies travel long distances out of Government-controlled cities like Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif, paying tolls to Government and rebel commanders alike.

In Kabul, the siege mentality of last year has given way to a dogged determination to resume normal lives. During a firefight this week between Government troops in Kabul's northern suburbs and rebels in the Paghman mountains, a visitor on a bicycle watched as butchers slaughtered camels, farmers tended to fields of spring wheat and schoolgirls walked arm-in-arm to school, apparently oblivious to the shells and rockets passing overhead. Everywhere, there were offers of tea, and pleas for peace.

Last year, many in Kabul were ready to welcome the guerrillas. But now they are mentioned only to condemn them for the rocketing, and for the rebel leaders' refusal, until now, to negotiate for peace. On the bicycle ride, as on other forays, the greatest enthusiasm seemed to run for Mohammed Zahir Shah, the 75-year-old exiled King.

''Tell the Americans: the Afghan people want the King back,'' said an old trader named Abdullah, seated in a stall fashioned from flattened oil cans. ''When he was here, there was none of this killing.''

A crowd applauded. ''Zahir Shah!'' they shouted. ''Zahir Shah!''

Photo: After 15 months of impasse in the fighting, most people in Afghanistan seem to believe that all hope for peace rests with negotiations. For now, there is an attempt to live normally in a world where 12-year-old Selima Aga can pose with the casing of a rocket that destroyed her home north of Kabul (John Burns/The New York Times); map: Afghanistan indicating Salang Highway (The New York Times)